The Holey Garment

Those who have not yet been through the temple still know that once you receive your temple endowment, you are expected to wear temple garments the rest of your life as a reminder of the covenants made in the temple. I’ve posted previously about some of the thoughts these garments brought to mind.

There’s a side effect to temple garments: you don’t throw them away like regular underwear.

It is a pain to dispose of temple garments. They are not to be thrown into trees like college underpants or disposed of like regular underwear. Temple garments are also more expensive than typical underwear: boxers at Costco go for $8.99 for a six-pack, while a single pair of men’s bottoms cost considerably more (and do not, IMHO, provide better manufacturing quality).

The culmination of these and other factors — cost, sacredness, awkwardness of disposal — lead me to believe that Mormons wear their underwear out a lot more than Gentiles. While a pair of Hanes gets tossed following a particularly bad day, temple garments will be worn until they are no longer distinguishable as such. I have limited data to back this up of course, but all this can change, thanks to your participation in our anonymous poll. Please provide this information, which I will present at the next possible Sunstone underpants symposium.

Is there a way to not have a temple recommend and not because of unworthiness? I only see two ways this is possible. One, it has expired. In which case, the solution is to renew it. The other possibility lies in the assumption that one or more requirements for a temple recommend have nothing to do with true â€œworthinessâ€.

But if we assume that being able to answer affirmatively to the recommend question amounts to worthiness to enter the temple, how is it possible that you can not be able to get a temple recommend for reasons unrelated to worthiness?

“Please, people, do we really want to be cleaning our homes with old underwear that is TOO OLD to be worn as underwear anymore??!?”

Ha! Steve, you can get some decent sized strips out of the t-shirt portion. If you have the cotton ones, they actually make pretty good cleaning rags. Now, if you’re wiping off the counter with the bottoms, then I probably don’t want to eat at your house.

Come to think of it, annegb, I don’t really recall ever being told the proper way to dispose of the garmet. I’ve heard suggestions, like the many listed already, but never the authorized version from the church. Perhaps I missed that lesson somewhere along the way. I just wear mine out and stash them away, not knowing what really to do with them. Any insight of what exactly to do would be great.

All I was ever told is to cut out and destroy the marks, then it’s just cloth to be thrown away or whatever. I don’t think its necessary to burn them (although if they make a great holiday fire, more power to you!).

I was endowed at the Los Angeles temple in late December 1994 — it opened for one day during a two-week Christmas break for people who needed living ordinances done. Consequently, I was with a large group of mostly young men and women who were all getting their endowments at the same time (which was kind of cool). The temple president spoke to all of us beforehand, and he said we should burn old garments, but added that if this was difficult then it would be sufficient to cut out the marks and just burn them.

This post has caused me to resolve to do a complete inventory and get rid of my garments that need disposal. Of course it takes a special sort of will power to do this in the summer since the old ones are cooler.

Note to any who haven’t ordered garments in the past few years (like myself, up until recently) — there are no shipping charges on garments when ordered online, so if it works better for you to order one pair a month than ten pairs all at once, there’s no cost disadvantage (to you, at least).

I think I have been scarred for life by my father’s refusal to buy new garments in a timely fashion, and his insistence on wearing them around the house as pyjamas. So if not for yourselves, please do it for your children.

I think it’s come up before. Someplace (FMH? Mommy Wars? Heck, maybe T & S) had a discussion of the subject a while ago. And someone (Anne GB?) remarked about how Mormon men wear their G’s too long. I believe that the phrase “look like they were shot in the butt with a shotgun” was used.

In my first area, my companion and I taught all 6 discussions to an extremely poor gentleman in our area. he lived in a hut composed of random scraps of metal and wood, and he wore the same outfit everyday: a white t-shirt with two big holes ripped in it, and a pair of shorts. For the sixth discussion, I was on splits, and so I taught the discussion with an elder from the adjacent area. This elder noticed something funny that neither I nor my comp had picked up on.

As we were leaving, the elder turned to me and asked me if I recognized what the investigator was wearing. “Yeah,” I replied. “That same old ripped-up t-shirt that he always wears.” Then, it was explained to me that that t-shirt was an old Mormon garment top with the symbols cut out. I had been teaching an investigator who was wearing a temple garment during the entire investigation process, and I had never picked up on it.

Moral of the story: Maybe you really should burn your garments when you’re through with them, cause if you don’t, someone out there may be wearing them, whether you’ve cut out the symbols or not.

Question: Is it ever appropriate to intentionally “alter” your garments, say, with a sewing machine? My wife is a seamstress, and she has done alterations for herself (and maybe others) to make the garments fit better. Presumably, if one is trying to shorten the garment’s length, in order to be able to wear skimpier clothes, that is a no-no. But what if you’re just trying to make the proportions fit you better? I figure there’s nothing wrong with that, but what do you all think?

Aaron, while we are counseled not to alter the garment, I imagine making them fit better is kosher. Moreover, you do bring up an excellent point – one which I am reticent to believe has been left unexplored. Why on earth has no one invented the garment shredder?! I can see it now in the Deseret Books:

Worried about scaries bringing the wrath of God upon themselves by sporting your old garments? Well, the engineers at BYU have developed the Immolator 2000. Now with cross-cut capabilities to ensure complete destruction of the holey garment.

I think they’ve lowered the prices recently–I got 4 sets for 24 dollars–if you replaced them every year that’s still only 50 dollars a year. I don’t think it’s too bad, and that’s coming from someone whose household income is less than $15,000 per year.

“I think I have been scarred for life by my father’s refusal to buy new garments in a timely fashion, and his insistence on wearing them around the house as pyjamas. So if not for yourselves, please do it for your children.
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Ugh, I hadn’t thought about this. I hope my daughter is still young enough to recover.

We have a holiday tradition at our house. During the week of Christmas. My husband and I gather up our worn garments and put them in the fireplace with a stack of wood and have a nice holiday fire. We wear cotton garments and I highly recommend them as firestarters.